Monday, April 04, 2005

The horror! The horror!

Basic argument: There is no real supply problem, high prices will lower demand, and the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will end in August, adding to supply.

My take: Technically, he's right. If you can go down the street and buy gas without problem then there's no supply problem, right? But if the oil market is like the stock market then it's more about the future supply than current supply, which was after all traded a number of months ago. He makes no mention of peak oil [not entirely a surprise], but no mention even of the problems oil companies are having replacing reserves and no mention of the fact that the 'new' oil is increasingly heavy crude, which is less desirable and responsible in part for the premium placed on light, sweet crude.

With all these people saying we go down, it's good to ponder why we might go down. Jim Rogers also felt there might be a possibility of a slowdown in China.

By the way, the answer to all this confusion is dollar cost averaging, assuming you believe the basic story.